sought at these meetings, but information; and that there had been much previous thinking amongst the audience, so readily did they apprehend an argument, a point, and even a distant allusion,
Mr. W. J. Fox followed, whose pen had done good service to free trade. I had not seen him before, and was struck with his appearance. His stature was of the lowest, and instead of being thin and wiry as most activelyintellectual little men are, he had both a full round body, and a full round countenance, such as might betoken a sluggish temperament, were not that belied by the expression of his mouth and eyes. The singularity of his appearance was heightened by a thick mass of black hair which floated on his broad shoulders. He commenced his address, and, at once, the rich deep tones of his voice hushed the whole audience into the deepest attention. So beautifully articulated was every syllable, that his stage whisper might have been heard at the farthest extremity of the gallery. The matter was good—nay excellent; abounding with neatly-pointed epigram, cutting sarcasm, withering denunciation, and argument condensed and urged with laconic force. Nothing could be finer; nothing told better than his proof of the truth of the free trade doctrines, that nothing new could be advanced on their side-truth not abounding in novelty—but additional evidences, everywhere furnished, of the pernicious consequences of the Corn Law. The speech read well; but the reader could have no conception of its effect as delivered, with a beauty of elocution, which Macready, on those same boards, might have envied. The effect, when he called on his hearers to bind themselves in a solemn league never to cease their labours till the Corn Laws were destroyed, was electrical—thousands starting on their feet, with arms extended, as if ready to swear extinction to monopoly.
I confess that I thought it ill-judged, when, after a speech of such spirit-stirring effect, Mr. Gisborne took his turn in
